The production, management and distribution of goods and services in a large economic environment present operational difficulties, especially for smaller players in an industry. With the use of computer automated systems companies like Wal-Mart™ (trademark owned by the Wal-Mart company of Bentonville, Ak.) have been able to maximize their efficiencies with advanced inventory monitoring and stocking.
Even service industries, for example the restaurant industry, have developed computer based systems to manage their “inventory”, that is, the availability of seats in a restaurant at specific times, referred to as “reservations”. The OpenTable™ (trademark owned by Priceline Group) web-based restaurant reservations systems allows the industry, through a fee based revenue structure, to manage reservations in an accurate and simple manner.
Prior to OpenTable, diners had to have an understanding of the restaurant “scene” in a certain location, or rely on different blogs or websites to find the type of restaurants they where they wished to dine. Diners would then have to call the restaurant and get a reservation at a certain time. If they did not have seating at that time it would be a laborious process to call several other restaurants to see if they had availability. On the restaurants side, they would have to field all these calls as well as have software that they would use to book the reservations. OpenTable provides a very simple and effective value proposition for both the consumers and restaurants. Through OpenTable's interface, consumers are able to see which restaurants in a given area or given cuisine are appealing based on several criteria, and also are able to see which have desirable times for a reservation. Diners are able to read reviews and have a more complete understanding of the dining experience they are about to go to. OpenTable also provides the restaurant industry with a vehicle for member restaurants to book reservations from customers with little cost of acquisition (in labor, or by creating their own application, etc.), as well as providing software for managing their front house operations. OpenTable keeps track of VIP's, customer preferences and repeat customers, provides table management software which assists restaurant staff in planning seating arrangements, for example, during busy times. This system also integrates with existing point-of-sale databases to retain check spend data by reservation. These, along with other reports, provide efficiencies for the entire front end of the restaurant industry.
The agrarian industry suffers from similar problems to both Walmart and OpenTable, and is populated by many smaller growers and distributors which simply do not have the wherewithal or expertise to efficiently manage their product development, distribution, maintenance and tracking. Moreover, due to the high level of complexity of CEA systems, it is difficult to operate one at a maximum level of production without having highly trained staffers.
Small farms, for example, have been unable to make an impact on the industrial food complex for many reasons. First, they do not have the critical product mass to make purchasing from them profitable for the majority of wholesalers or retailers. Second, food safety standards are quite lenient and very hard to enforce, making selling into more regulated establishments (large supermarket chains) difficult. Therefore, small farmers have been confined to selling their products at roadside stands, farmers markets, as a result of direct agreements with restaurants, or through Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) models. However, several of these sales mechanisms can be very risky. For example, if it rains during a farmers market, much of a farmer's produce may not be bought, which can be financially crippling. It would be desirable to develop systems to aid small agrarian businesses to cope with these and other issues.
Every year in the US alone over 40 percent of the food that is produced is not eaten, most often simply being converted to landfill waste even though nearly all that waste contained useful nutrients and caloric content prior to its demise. This adds up to nearly twenty pounds of waste per person per month valued at over $200 Billion of value. This waste shows up in all aspects of the food supply chain including, farming, manufacturing, retail, processing, food service, and the home. This food waste often has locked-up nutrients prior to the “naturally stamped-on” expiration date which, if proactively managed, could have further usefulness. Such food stuffs could also find new uses different from their original intended purposes, but heretofore there has not been a mechanism to characterize the new uses for eventual direction or redirection into the supply chain.
As mentioned above, it is difficult to operate such systems at a maximum level of production without having highly trained staffers. It would therefore also be desirable to develop automated systems which allow producers to be relieved of the stress points inherent in operating CEAs so that the systems can operate without the need for highly trained information technology specialists, but which are adaptable for managing complex parameters in agrarian environments which may require varied sensor inputs and data management. Such systems should be interactive with the worldwide web, and allow farmers, distributors, customers and retailers to interact for maximum product freshness, variety and affordability. Such needs have not heretofore been achieved in the art.